Clay Shirky II – Cognitive Surplus – out now
Clay Shirky’s second book Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age is now out. At ISOC-NY we well remember when Clay first expounded these ideas to our ears at the ‘Futures of the Internet’ forum at NYU in April 2008.
Cory Doctorow in his Boing Boing review sums up the theme of the book thus:
Shirky’s hypothesis is that a lot of the 20th century stuff we used to take for granted — most people didn’t want to create media, people didn’t value homemade and amateur productions, no one would pitch in to create something for others to enjoy unless they were being paid — weren’t immutable laws of nature, but accidents of history. The Internet has undone those accidents, by making it possible for more people to make and do cool stuff, especially together.
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